But because the due date is unreliable in the first place, inducing the baby may cause them to be born too soon. Many people (and their health care providers) become so attached to their due date that when the baby doesn’t come on that day, they schedule an induction. The only thing you’ll know for sure is that you should give birth within two weeks before or after that day. Take note of the word “approximate ” your baby will grow and mature on their own schedule. Your approximate due date is that day within the next year. Babies have a gestational period of about 280 days, so count back three months from the first day of your last period and add seven more days. If you do know the date of your last period, try the following calculation, called Naegele’s Rule. In fact, there’s really no need for a sonogram to determine a due date unless you don’t know the date of your last period. So, while many health-care providers keep giving ultrasounds to reassess the due date throughout pregnancy, the date is actually becoming less accurate as time goes by. Until 13 weeks of gestation, most babies grow at the same rate, but as pregnancy progresses, fetal size corresponds less and less to the amount of time that the baby is in the womb. A date based on an ultrasound can be off by a week or more depending on the skill of the technician, the timing of the sonogram and the size of the baby. Many health-care providers use a sonogram to pinpoint your due date, but don’t be swayed by technology. For the other 90 percent of pregnant people, what does your due date really mean? Your baby doesn’t have a calendar, however, so it is no surprise that less than ten percent of babies actually arrive on the date they are due. Unfortunately, a specified due date has made everyone (family and friends included) place too much emphasis on a precise day-to the point that they plan their life around it. For earlier generations of women, the concept of a due date was “around Thanksgiving” or “late fall.” As birth moved from home to hospital, women were given the approximate date when they should expect to be confined to a hospital bed, called the “estimated date of confinement.” Eventually, this term evolved into “expected date of delivery,” now called “due date.”
0 kommentar(er)
